StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Campaign preview

When we last left psychic-sniper/assassin-turned-Zerg-empress Sarah Kerrigan at the end of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, she had been restored to her human self by the efforts of good ol' Jimmy Raynor. Well, sort of. She still has those tentacle things instead of hair, and apparently retains the loyalty of at least some portion of the ravening Zerg swarm. I got to join the conflicted Kerrigan aboard her organic Zerg flagship recently and see a handful of new missions in StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, from about the middle of the campaign.

The Leviathan, a gigantic Zerg creature that serves as the swarm's mobile base of operations in the campaign, bears some resemblance to Raynor's Hyperion from Wings of Liberty. It does feel a little more claustrophobic and less... alive (ironically, considering the entire thing is actually alive ). While the Hyperion had a handful of different ship areas to visit, all populated with ambient conversations and the like, the Leviathan offers a mere two (as of this build), that have less going on in them overall. It may just be a glorified framework for menu screens, but I'm hoping it will feel a little more fleshed out in the final release. (Get it? Flesh? Oh shut up, I'm hilarious.)

Aside from the bridge, which is some kind of toothed orifice (I hope it's a mouth; please let it just be a mouth...) where you will interact with your advisers (and, occasionally, prisoners), I was able to skitter over to a couple other areas. The evolution pit is where you will evolve your units (more on this later) to create a custom Zerg army. There's also the Kerrigan upgrade screen, which will let you select talents once you've earned enough levels in the campaign missions. This, oddly, is not modeled as an organic part of the ship, but rather a more traditional menu display.

Speaking of levels, Heart of the Swarm is doing things a little differently than, say, Warcraft III. Kerrigan is your persistent hero unit throughout the campaign, and she gains "Levels" (as opposed to experience) for completing mission objectives. Typically, the objective required to finish the mission gave me a nice chunk of Levels, and optional objectives were available for smaller, bite-sized bonuses. Once you pass certain thresholds (10/20/35/50/60 out of a cap of 70), you will get to select one of two talents.

Talents can be swapped freely between missions. A few of the more interesting ones included a chain lightning type spell, an automated hatchery ability that resurrects 10 killed Zerglings on a countdown timer for free, and the ability to hatch Drones in pairs for the same cost.

Kerrigan isn't the only thing you can customize, however. Each of your core units will be able to select one of three mutations, which can be swapped freely between missions for no cost. In addition, as the campaign progresses, you will unlock Evolution missions, which will let you choose between one of two variants for a given unit. Unlike mutations, evolution choices are permanent. Mutations continue to be available (and your options seem to largely stay the same) after you have evolved a unit, totaling six possible versions of each beast in the swarm.

Here's a unit-by-unit breakdown:

Zerglings

Evolution lets you pick between:

The Raptor, a Zergling that does more damage, and can leap up cliffs and into combat, or...

The Swarmling, which spawns in groups of three instead of two, and only costs 1/3 food instead of the usual 1/2. Yes, this means you could create an army of 600 Swarmlings.

Mutation lets you select one of the following on a mission-by-mission basis:

Increased life

Increased attack speed

Increased movement speed

Banelings

Evolution lets you pick between:

A new, Raptor-like variant called the Hunter that can leap up cliffs and into the middle of unit formations, or...